PC Build

Peerzy

Peerzy

Peerzy

Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2008
Posts
7,148
Evening, looking to build a system for use in an office environment. Will mainly be used for MS Office 2010, internet, basic programs (no games and nothing graphics intensive).

Budget is £250 ex vat for just the base unit as I've already got a keyboard, mouse, OS and he's picked a monitor already (THIS) No need for speakers or anything else.

PC will be using Windows XP at the start but he's likely to upgrade to Windows 7 at some point.

Ideally he's looking for a minimum of 320GB HDD, 4GB RAM, a small plain case (a small tower), will never be overclocked, most of the work will be over a network so no real use for an SSD, onboard graphics are fine.

What do you suggest? I was hoping to get something along the lines of a decent i3?

Was thinking;

Case & PSU £25 ex vat (unsure if PSU would be good enough, but the case is exactly what he's after, small and understated)
RAM £20 ex vat
HDD £39 ex vat
DVDRW £13 ex vat
= £97 ex vat leaving £153 left for the motherboard and CPU.

Then unsure where to go for the motherboard and CPU?
 
Done a slight change:

£186.74 ex VAT and no shipping.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £45.98
1 x Asus P8H61-MX Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - OEM ** £39.98
1 x Intel Celeron G540 2.50GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £35.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £29.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £27.98
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £23.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
2 x OcUK Value SATA-II 45cm Red Data Cable (NLRB-302LOCK) £2.59 (£5.18)
Total : £238.19 (includes shipping : £11.75).




or

£204.24


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £56.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £45.98
1 x Asus P8H61-MX Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - OEM ** £39.98
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £29.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £27.98
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £23.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
2 x OcUK Value SATA-II 45cm Red Data Cable (NLRB-302LOCK) £2.59 (£5.18)
Total : £259.19 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
The Celeron is far too slow and out dated, he wants to keep the machine for 3-5 years doing office work etc...

I was hoping for a high DC Pentium or maybe an i3.

Also the case looks massive? He's looking for the smallest tower possible, everything else looks good though, the PSU is nice and didn't realise you could get 8GB of RAM for only a tiny bit more.
 
 
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USB3 and SATA3 isn't needed and I'd probably actually rather save the money there and get a better CPU or something if possible.

Will have a play with those builds by nkata though as it's along the right idea!

I also get free shipping so that's a tiny bit extra to add onto the budget.

How does this look;

 
Last edited:
Peerzy said:
USB3 and SATA3 isn't needed and I'd probably actually rather save the money there and get a better CPU or something if possible.

Will have a play with those builds by nkata though as it's along the right idea!

I also get free shipping so that's a tiny bit extra to add onto the budget.

How does this look;

Click to expand...

Looks fine.
I started looking at the new AMD trinity FM2 APU for you but noted your inclination to i3. It still may be worth a look for your proposed tasks. A better onboard GPU and a quad core processor for much the same price or cheaper.
 
£239 excluding vat and delivery

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £45.98
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D2V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £44.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £29.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £27.98
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £23.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £301.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).



I know you said you wanted a small case, merc alpha gaming case is 12 cm taller than the ocuk imp, 1.4 cm longer and 1 cm wider

if you can get over the 12cm height difference you will get better quality and looking case

Also reason i slapped 8gb in instead of 4 is for when you upgrade to win7.
 
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How about the below, most is from OcUK but the PSU and case is from elsewhere. Only 4GB of Ram as the OS will be 32bit at the start, but gives him the option to chuck in an extra 4GB:

Intel Core i3 3220 3.30GHz Socket 1155 3MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Asus P8H61-MX USB3 Socket 1155 VGA DVI 8 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard
Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Non-ECC (9-9-9-24) 1.50V
Seagate 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Barracuda Hard Drive 7200RPM 16MB Cache
Samsung SH-222BB 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black
Black Micro ATX Case - No PSU
Corsair 430W V2 CX Series PSU

That comes to £217.30 ex vat which seems pretty decent?
 
Bump, going to order today.

How does the above machine sound? Decent spec I feel for the money and will keep him going for a few years doing basic office tasks.
 
Peerzy said:
It's Manufacturer ID is CMX4GX3M1A1333C9 which seems to show it as 1x 4GB?
Click to expand...

It is a single stick.

It will work.

But for best performance get a dual kit as thats what the memory controller in the CPU is capable of.
 
stulid said:
It is a single stick.

It will work.

But for best performance get a dual kit as thats what the memory controller in the CPU is capable of.
Click to expand...

Ah right yeah I get that, it's cheaper than a dual kit though and he's likely to want to upgrade to 8GB in the future so it would mean he would just have to buy 1 extra 4GB stick and not replace the entire lot.

Does it really make that much difference?
 
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